“Touching now the question of browsing and sluicing,” he said. “I’ll be getting them to send along a waiter.”
“Oh, good gracious!”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’ve just remembered. I promised faithfully I would go and see Jane Murchison to-day. And I clean forgot. I must rush.”
“But light of my soul, we are about to eat. Pop around and see her after dinner.”
“I can’t. She’s going to a theatre to-night.”
“Give her the jolly old miss-in-baulk, then, for the nonce, and spring round to-morrow.”
“She’s sailing for England to-morrow morning, early. No, I must go and see her now. What a shame! She’s sure to make me stop to dinner, I tell you what. Order something for me, and, if I’m not back in half an hour, start.”
“Jane Murchison,” said Archie, “is a bally nuisance.”
“Yes. But I’ve known her since she was eight.”
“If her parents had had any proper feeling,” said Archie, “they would have drowned her long before that.”
He unhooked the receiver, and asked despondently to be connected with Room Service. He thought bitterly of the exigent Jane, whom he recollected dimly as a tall female with teeth. He half thought of going down to the grill-room on the chance of finding a friend there, but the waiter was on his way to the room. He decided that he might as well stay where he was.
The waiter arrived, booked the order, and departed. Archie had just completed his toilet after a shower-bath when a musical clinking without announced the advent of the meal. He opened the door. The waiter was there with a table congested with things under covers, from which escaped a savoury and appetising odour. In spite of his depression, Archie’s soul perked up a trifle.
Suddenly he became aware that he was not the only person present who was deriving enjoyment from the scent of the meal. Standing beside the waiter and gazing wistfully at the foodstuffs was a long, thin boy of about sixteen. He was one of those boys who seem all legs and knuckles. He had pale red hair, sandy eyelashes, and a long neck; and his eyes, as he removed them from the-table and raised them to Archie’s, had a hungry look. He reminded Archie of a half-grown, half-starved hound.
“That smells good!” said the long boy. He inhaled deeply. “Yes, sir,” he continued, as one whose mind is definitely made up, “that smells good!”
Before Archie could reply, the telephone bell rang. It was Lucille, confirming her prophecy that the pest Jane would insist on her staying to dine.
“Jane,” said Archie, into the telephone, “is a pot of poison. The waiter is here now, setting out a rich banquet, and I shall have to eat two of everything by myself.”
He hung up the receiver, and, turning, met the pale eye of the long boy, who had propped himself up in the doorway.
“Were you expecting somebody to dinner?” asked the boy.
“Why, yes, old friend, I was.”
“I wish–”
“Yes?”
“Oh, nothing.”
The waiter left. The long boy hitched his back more firmly against the doorpost, and returned to his original theme.
“That surely does smell good!” He basked a moment in the aroma. “Yes, sir! I’ll tell the world it does!”
Archie was not an abnormally rapid thinker, but he began at this point to get a clearly defined impression that this lad, if invited, would waive the formalities and consent to join his meal. Indeed, the idea Archie got was that, if he were not invited pretty soon, he would invite himself.
“Yes,” he agreed. “It doesn’t smell bad, what!”
“It smells GOOD!” said the boy. “Oh, doesn’t it! Wake me up in the night and ask me if it doesn’t!”
“Poulet en casserole,” said Archie.
“Golly!” said the boy, reverently.
There was a pause. The situation began to seem to Archie a trifle difficult. He wanted to start his meal, but it began to appear that he must either do so under the penetrating gaze of his new friend or else eject the latter forcibly. The boy showed no signs of ever wanting to leave the doorway.
“You’ve dined, I suppose, what?” said Archie.